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The election that won't end: 2 House seats in New York, 1 in California remain in question

More than two weeks after the Nov. 6 election, The Associated Press has yet to call a pair of House races – both in The Empire State – and FiveThirtyEight, the data analysis website founded by statistician-turned-journalist Nate Silver, is questioning the AP’s call in another House race.

The election that won't end: 2 House seats in New York, 1 in California remain in question

President Donald Trump was a dominant force in the midterm elections as attitudes toward him influenced the decisions of more than 6 in 10 voters. According to AP VoteCast, women voted considerably more in favor of Democratic candidates. (Nov. 6)
AP

There might still be a U.S. House seat up for grabs in California, too.

More than two weeks after the Nov. 6 election, The Associated Press has yet to call a pair of House races – both in The Empire State – and FiveThirtyEight, the data analysis website founded by statistician-turned-journalist Nate Silver, is questioning the AP’s call in another House race on the West Coast.

In NY 27, a heavily Republican district, Democrat Nate McMurray made allegations Wednesday of irregularities in the voting process in his challenge for the seat held by Rep. Chris Collins, who is scheduled to stand trial in 2020 after pleading not guilty earlier this year to charges of insider trading.

But Erie County Republican Election Commissioner Ralph Mohr said it was “mathematically improbable” for McMurray to win, reported the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, a member of the USA TODAY Network.

After the last of some 10,000 absentee ballots were tallied Tuesday, Collins led McMurray by 1,384 votes with about 900 affidavit ballots and an unknown number of military and federal ballots left to be counted.

Collins has declared victory.

So has Anthony Brindisi, who, as of Tuesday night, led Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney by more than 4,000 votes with about 1,900 additional ballots to be counted in NY 22, the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

If those two New York races hold, the Democrats will have flipped 39 seats to gain control of the House.

A 40th seat shouldn’t be ruled out, Silver of FiveThirtyEight tweeted Wednesday, referring to the race between Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat TJ Cox in California's 21st Congressional District.

While the AP has declared Valadao as the winner, Cox pulled within 447 votes with some 15,000 ballots left to be counted, the Fresno Bee reported Wednesday.

“The @AP and most of the networks still have this race called for Valadao, which is just super lazy (and that's about the nicest thing I can say about it). Should have been uncalled 10 days ago,” Silver tweeted.

Later Wednesday, Decision Desk HQ retracted its call of the CA 21 race, prompting another tweet from Silver.

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